May 2005 Meeting &

Plant of the Month Competition

Agaves

This month was a real treat as we had a really excellent talk from Peter Burton from Leeds branch. The talk was on Agaves. He told us this was a talk that was developed from a branch talk (Leeds). In the first half he showed us a lot of plants, mainly small ones. He told us that there was not much literature on Agaves - in fact the last Monograph was published in 1915.

They are easy plants to grow but they must have good drainage. You water from March to October and it is good to stand them outside in these months. During the summer months you water a lot, but they do not like hot temperatures. They do not suffer much insect and predictors trouble, but sometimes they get black spot. He then showed us some slides from the 2000 & 2004 National shows. For safety reason he suggested that we put wine corks on the spines. Then we then were shown slides of a private collection in Belgium and agaves in Tenerife.

After this we all said Goodbye to Alistair Hair, who is our show Convenor. He is moving to southern France in July. We all wished him a successful move and thanked him for all the hard work he had given to the branch